Guararapes Painéis invests R$ 1 billion in a new factory and rules out going public in the short term

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Guararapes Painéis, from Santa Catarina, today inaugurated a new MDF plant that places the company among the largest producers in the world, after an investment of R$ 1 billion. With the new unit, the company expects to exceed a net turnover of R$ 2 billion still in 2023.

While the production line was being put into operation for the first time, in the Caçador industrial complex, in the central region of Santa Catarina, Ricardo Pedroso, general director of the company, spoke exclusively with the reporter of InfoMoney.

“I have just received information that we are in the process of producing the first board. That means that the line is ready to start”, reported Pedroso. With the line in operation, the company that was founded as a small lumber company in 1984 by João Carlos Pedroso (father of the current president) and Valderez Bertolin, will practically double its production capacity.

The increase will be around 90%, with the capacity to produce 1,140 million m³ per year, the largest increase in production since 2016, when the company went from 200,000 m³ to 600,000 m³ per year. “With this investment we consolidate our position among the main players of the segment in the world, both in MDF and in plywood, in the domestic market and for export”, says Pedroso. Today, the company exports to more than 50 countries and 40% of its income comes from abroad, especially from the United States, where plywood is widely used in civil construction.

Most of the investment in the new plant came from company cash. The rest (R$ 475 million) was obtained through green loans (Green Loans) linked to proven and certified sustainable actions. For this reason, the new plant has a series of certified innovations and technologies, such as an evaporator that works in a closed circuit and receives the raw effluent, separates the solid content from the liquid and allows the condensed material to be reused in the industrial process.

This, however, was ‘plan b’. The initial idea was to raise this money on the Stock Market. At the end of 2020, Guararapes Painéis presented his prospect to debut in B3. Before the IPO was made, the window of opportunity, says Pedroso, closed. “We did not carry out the IPO for market reasons. We decided to maintain governance, our board of directors remains active and the company continues to be listed on the stock market, despite not having shares traded on the stock market,” says Pedroso.

And for now, there are no plans to try again. “The window remains closed. There are only a few specific pickups and follow-up moves. With our line starting operations now, let’s focus on ramp up of the operation and we continue to evaluate. Today we have a larger size, growth potential, we are at another level of governance. And to carry out (an IPO) we would need a new investment thesis”, adds Pedroso.

prospects

With the opening, the company is expected to increase its revenues between 10% and 15% in 2023 and resume the growth it experienced during the first years of the pandemic. According to a survey by Casa do Construtor and AGP Pesquisas, 68% of Brazilians underwent some type of renovation between 2020 and 2021. As a result, companies in the civil construction sector, such as Guararapes, experienced overheating, with a ‘ boom’ of bottlenecks in orders and deliveries. “The entire industry was in full swing for almost 18 months. Since the middle of last year, demand slowed down and we managed to normalize the level of inventory”, says Pedroso.

For 2023, even with the challenging scenario of rising inflation, mainly abroad, the expectation continues to be growth. “All these buildings that are being built in São Paulo, for example, will generate demand for our products in two or three years and for a long time,” says Humberto Oliveira, commercial and marketing director of Guararapes Painéis.

With 500,000 m² of constructed area on land of 1,200,000 m² This is, according to Pedroso, the largest place de las Américas With this, the company that began as a lumber company with 15 employees will incorporate another 280 people and will expand its total workforce to 2,293 employees, adding offices and its other two manufacturing units, in Palmas, Paraná, and Santa Cecília, Santa Catarina. .

The expectation is to reach a net invoicing of R$ 2 billion in 2023 and maintain a portfolio expansion strategy for the furniture industry. “Considering that we are not going to grow only in production, but also in added value, our potential is to reach R$ 3 billion in the coming years”, says Pedroso.

Competence

MDF is an acronym for medium density fiberboard, which in a loose translation would be medium density fiberboard, is quite common in the furniture industry. Used in baseboards, bookcases, tables, cabinets and other furniture, the material had a market of US$53 billion in 2021, with an estimate of reaching US$96 billion in 2031, according to a recently published market analysis.

Also read: Dexco (DXCO3) bets to move with civil construction

In Brazil, one of the main manufacturers of MDF is Dexco (DXCO3), ex-Duratex, controlled by Itaúsa (ITSA4). The company posted a net profit of BRL 154,329 million in the first quarter of 2023 (1Q23), 31% less than in the same period of 2022, the company reported in early May. The shares accumulate an increase of 29% since the beginning of the year.

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